The Child

by Sarah Schulman

  “Like what?”

  Victor had been a very strange baby. Very passive. Now, as a little boy, he was extremely quiet. Sometimes he asked questions, but they seemed to be by rote and not very imaginative. Stew never felt that Victor actually realized that life was going on.

  “How is Daddy?” Carole asked in the other room. It was the question she knew Brigid wanted to answer.

  “Always criticizing himself. He’s never satisfied.”

  Stew and Victor were quiet, listening.

  “This thing with Stew is making us both crazy.”

  Not again, Stew thought. It was too much pressure, this constant assault.

  “If Stew doesn’t get out of the house,” Brigid flapped, “something terrible will happen. You remember what it was like the last time your father left me.”

  I’m not going.

  “Daddy’s not going to do that again.” Carole lit her cigarette. “He was being a baby.”

  “I couldn’t sleep for a year,” Brigid’s voice croaked. “I stayed up all night smoking.”

  “I remember.”

  “I couldn’t get under the sheets. I couldn’t stand being in bed. I had to weigh down one side with old coats. Every time I dreamed, I dreamed of loving your father. Waking up was a nightmare; it made me afraid to go to sleep. I cried every day for a year. My face changed from so much grief.”

  “I remember.”

  “Every night I stared at the hook in the bedroom wall and at my belt. The skin on my neck stretched. I stayed up smoking with that belt around my neck. I can’t go through that again.”

  “How can you ever trust Daddy after that?”

  “I can’t,” Brigid said. “But I can’t trust anyone else, either. At least I know that I love him. Trust is a luxury for the young. I’d rather love him and not trust him than trust and love no one. Stew isn’t the only person in this story. He’s a kid. Everything can still happen for him. Not for me.”

  The thing about those bitches was that they had never done anything interesting. They’d never actually taken a risk and gotten caught and still not regretted it. Those two mules knew nothing about living, and yet they were in charge. How did this happen? That’s what Stew would like to know. Well, he wasn’t going anywhere and that was that. He didn’t have anywhere to go, even if he wanted to. He needed to stay home.

  “You see, Victor. If you ask those bitches what goes on in the men’s room, they would say wee-wee and ca-ca. Some of the guys I meet there are from Puerto Rico, some are from Albany. If Mom knew, she would throw them in jail. Dad’s trying to get rid of me, but I don’t want to go. I need a home. I’m only fifteen. If he gets rid of me, I’ll get AIDS.”

  Stew was sweating. He felt weird. The room was tipping. He was furious.

  “I’m hungry.” Victor looked around the kitchen.

  Carole reached for another cigarette. Her lighter jammed. “Shit.” She called out. “Victor! Everything okay in there?”

  Victor looked at Stew. “Yeah,” he said.

  Stew gripped the counter.

  “Mom,” Carole said. “I love you.” She found the matches.

  Brigid sat back in her chair. “Thank God you were born.”

  “The egg salad is almost ready,” Stew called out to his mother and sister. Then he whispered, “Listen, Victor, don’t eat this egg salad. It has spit in it. It’s only for stupid, boring bitches. They hate me, and they’re going to hate you, because you’re going to have a great life once you figure out that you’re alive. If Mom throws me out, I might have to come live with you and Carole and Sam.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “How will I get food if they throw me out? Don’t eat the egg salad, Victor. Have an apple.”

  “I want a Big Mac.”

  “This is a Big Mac,” Stew said, holding up the apple. “Just pretend. That’s what I have to do. I’m stuck in this fucking house, but I pretend I’m at the train station or the mall or the rest stop or the park.” Stew was scared; he didn’t know how far he could go. “Then sometimes I can escape for just a few hours and all my friends are waiting for me.” His voice was strangely melodic, singing terror. “Those guys I was telling you about? What about you, Victor? Do you like guys?” There, he’d done it. Carole would kill him.

  “I want a Big Mac.”

  “This is a Big Mac that lives in your mind. No matter how many people tell you that you can’t have a Big Mac, you can have it.” Come on, Victor. “You can smell the Big Mac. You can remember it. You can taste Mac.” He got down on his knees, so close he could smell Victor’s baby breath. “Believe me, Victor, get an imagination, or you’ll never make it through this family alive.”

  “That’s not a Big Mac.” Victor was unsure of what he was supposed to do, and he started to worry about it.

  “It is. It is. It is a make-believe Big Mac. In our secret make-believe world. Get it? In our secret world there are no creeps, there are only Macs. Hey, Mac.”

  “Hey, Mac,” Victor laughed.

  “That’s our secret code, Mac. I say Mac and you say Mac and we’re having a secret boner.”

  “Mac.”

  “Don’t tell Carole I said boner. She’ll tell Daddy and he’ll throw me out, and I’ll have to peddle my ass and then I’ll get it. Okay, Mac? That’s our code, Victor. The secret word only for guys.” He was sweating. His tongue dried. His hands were white with fear. “Have you ever seen a really big dick, Victor? Don’t tell Daddy I said that. It’s you and me, Victor. It’s make-believe Mac. That means we know what’s out there. Guys.”

  “Mac,” said Victor, taking the apple.

  “And it’s just our secret, right?”

  “Mac.”

  “Right,” said Stew, putting the spit sandwiches on plates. “Don’t tell anybody.” He looked at the boy. Stew knew he had to get the kid out of that kitchen. “Okay, take the bad people their food.”

  15

  Mary and Eva at home. Dim lights from last night’s candles melted on the table. Remnants of a great meal. Wine glasses. It’s morning now. Those last moments of making love again before the day just has to begin.

  “Come on, girlie.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Yum.”

  “Kiss me,” Eva said. And then, “You scare me.”

  “You like that.”

  And then the phone rings, and the bed gets left behind.

  “Eva, it’s for you. Some guy.”

  Eva could smell Mary’s hair. She brushed her face against it. So soft, blonde, and light. A miracle, really, like the ocean. She ran her hand one more time over Mary’s ass and then took the phone out of bed.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Dr. Pollack at the clinic. I was just reading over my films from last month and noticed a minuscule mass in your left breast. It’s probably nothing, but for your own peace of mind I think you should go see your breast doctor and have her take a look. Even if it is a malignancy, it would be in such an early stage, but I would say you’ve got a ninety-nine-percent chance it’s nothing. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t have a breast doctor. Can you recommend somebody?”

  Mary got out of bed and walked over to her computer. They called it “nude writing.” Eva’s version was “nude housework.”

  “Sure. Why don’t you call Dr. Gita Kumar? K-U-M-A-R. She’s at Park Avenue and Seventy-second Street. She’s a great doctor.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call her right away.”

  “And Eva?”

  “Yes?”

  “Get some good insurance.”

  Eva looked at Mary, how sleek she was. She never tired of the familiarity of Mary’s body. Its lanky shapeliness. Mary would be able to handle this. Fear of disease is a normal part of daily life. In this second the knowledge was still private. Between Eva and the clinic. She was about to tell Mary, but she looked at her first. Eva watched her.

  The most important thing in Eva’s life was to belong to somebody. She belonged to Mary.
Everything would be all right. Nothing out there is ultimately that important when you have love. Someone to love. Each person on the planet has strengths and weaknesses. So did Mary. So did Eva. Eva accepted this. There is no person without problems; there is no relationship without conflict. As far as Eva was concerned, the difference between people who split up and people who stay together is that some people split up and other people stay together. There was no problem that couldn’t be dealt with if they face it.

  Whenever something disappointing had happened between them, Eva did everything she could to make it be okay. She would sit and try for hours and days to figure out what it was that upset her, what she thought was causing it, and what she thought would help make it better. Then she would prepare. This meant think it through so that she knew clearly what she felt. Then she would share all this information in a clear and loving way so that Mary could understand. Then she would sit back and listen to how Mary responded. How Mary felt. Then she would take in this new information—how Mary felt. Mary’s ideas of how to make it better. And see how this changed her own initial understanding. Eva would then systematically try all of their mutual ideas until something improved.

  Like one time Eva started to feel that Mary didn’t do the dishes. This made her angry. The first thing to find out was if that was in fact the case, or if it was just a false perception, a projection. She and Mary talked it over, looked truthfully at who did the dishes when. Eva was shocked to discover that Mary actually did do the dishes, but Eva had just not felt that she did. Feelings were not facts. The resentment was misplaced; it had to do with other things. Dishes had become emotional code for Eva’s own feelings of inadequacy because she was unemployed. She felt bad about herself, so she blamed her lover for something that wasn’t happening.

  It was illustrative. How important conversation was to finding out the truth. If they had never discussed it, Eva would have blamed Mary forever for something she hadn’t done. It would have been a convenient blame, and Eva wouldn’t have known or faced the truth about herself. About how bad she felt about herself. How much she needed the job that Hockey had brought her, the opportunity to do something good. Then she would accept herself with more certainty and be a better girlfriend for Mary. Now it was all obvious. She was grateful.

  There would always be a new problem. That is part of life. Now, with this phone call, the new problem had arrived.

  “Honey,” she cooed to her nude writer. “I have to tell you something. It’s not bad news, it’s just annoying.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “That was Dr. Pollack. He found a minuscule mass in my left breast, and it’s probably nothing, which means we have nothing to worry about.”

  “You mean that creep who molested you? He is not a good doctor!”

  “You can still be a molester and be a good doctor … scientifically? Right?”

  Eva and Mary carefully discussed the minuscule mass for about a half hour. Mary took out her breast health book and they looked up a few things. Mary had the patience to read the relevant sections and explain them to Eva. Eva cried. Mary kissed her and looked into her eyes. And when there was nothing more to say, Mary made herself a cup of tea with a little cognac in it and kissed Eva’s face a thousand times. Then Mary put the book on the kitchen table and went back to her computer. They talked some more, with Mary sitting at the computer and Eva making coffee. They discussed how Nathalie had had breast cancer, although she survived it. They discussed how they were poorer than Nathalie and had less social currency and lived in the era of HMOs, and that this added up to a shorter life span in general. In the course of this conversation, Eva admitted that dying seemed natural to her. After all, so many of her friends had done it. Even living this long sometimes felt supernatural. Mary was worried about the responsibility. She even said so.

  “If you are dying of breast cancer, I can’t take care of you by myself. And forget your family. Not after this baby shower thing.”

  “You’re right,” Eva said. “I would need a care group, like Hockey had. But I don’t have cancer yet. It’s just a minuscule mass.”

  “You’re right.” Mary relaxed. “Isn’t this crazy? For me to have you sick and dying when all we know is that there is a minuscule mass. How did that happen? I think we had a TV moment. Isn’t that funny, Eva? That we were just doing what we’ve seen so many women do on TV. There, when the doctor calls, suddenly the whole plot is about Does she or doesn’t she have it? And we’re all supposed to panic.”

  And Eva knew that was true. And she was so grateful, to have someone love her who could notice that.

  “Yeah.” Eva was entirely grateful. So, so lucky. “Let’s not get manipulated into panicking.”

  “Let’s not.”

  After all, in real life this moment is so normal. Most of the women they knew over forty had been through this, and most of them were fine. And most of the ones who were not fine dealt with it. Mary was right–they shouldn’t let the TV version overwhelm the real-life one. They didn’t want the TV to tell them what to feel.

  “You’ll come with me to the doctor, and we’ll see what we need to do, right?”

  “Right.” Mary started typing. That was how she signaled normalcy. She had all of her most important conversations from the keyboard.

  “Anyway,” Eva kept talking. “A minuscule mass means early detection.”

  Mary could write and listen at the same time, because so much of writing is busy work, like recopying and doing cover letters. It was a way for her to both interact and release tension simultaneously.

  The subject then turned to Ethel, Eva’s evil sister, and the exclusion from knowing their niece/nephew. But all through this increasingly familiar but still new topic, Eva was surprised to find herself wondering if she would become a woman with one or no breasts. And if in many years Mary were to strangely predecease her, then would she still be able to get a new girlfriend? After thinking this over, privately, she concluded that if she wasn’t going to die and her hair grew back, and she returned to work, she absolutely would be able to get a new girlfriend, just in case Mary got hit by a car.

  Eva’s observations of life had taught her that lesbians of her generation had sex with a lot of different people in their twenties, a serious lover in their thirties and forties, and then were alone in their fifties. This was because their lovers died, had their behavior taken over by alcohol or mental illness, went kooky for someone so young they could have given birth to her, or couldn’t take city life one more day and moved to Vermont, leaving the other behind. The other, fearing boredom more than being alone, chose to be alone forever in Manhattan rather than petrifying à deux in Burlington. Then Eva realized she was imagining Mary’s disappearance as a symbol of her own. This raging returning projection startled her. It was getting to be a bad habit. Blame.

  There was a threatened aloneness to homosexuality. Everyone always predicted its inevitability. But Eva had not imagined leaving Mary behind so soon. Homosexual aloneness was an accusation, ironically created by the accusers. And then these same people went out of their way to enforce it. It was a cinch. Keeping her from her niece/nephew guaranteed Eva’s loneliness, and then the created loneliness was pointed to as the inherent pathology. A neat trick.

  At this point of depth between two people, it’s hard to find heart for a new hunt. It’s hard to be able to get to know someone new from scratch only to have to wait yet another eleven years before really caring about them. The first seven years are so preliminary anyway. Who can go through that again? Besides, how could either Mary or Eva ever explain themselves to a new person at this point? It was too complicated. Too much baggage. They each were the person who had seen the other unfold. If Eva died, someone else could come in at the end and hear all the stories–that was no fun. But if Eva lived, and only had one breast, they could continue to create the stories. And that was the point.

  Mary was the person who knew all of this. Mary knew what’s what.

>   “You are the love of my life,” Eva said.

  “I feel the same way.” Mary looked up from behind the keyboard. Their eyes locked. Mary smiled–she felt satisfaction. It was obvious. After a minute, she naturally returned to her work.

  “Oh my God!”

  “What is it?”

  “Eva, look at this e-mail. Someone wants to talk to me about my play!”

  “Oh my God.” Maybe everything would change at once. “Which play?”

  “Freud Was My Co-Pilot.”

  “I love that play. Who wants it?”

  “Ilene Leopold.”

  And so that name entered their lives, electronically.

  “Who is that?”

  “You know.” Mary was frantic. “Ilene Leopold. Ilene Leopold. Leopold. She’s very well known. Someone told me she used to have a girlfriend, so I sent her my play. She produced that show–what’s it called? And that other thing–you know, the cowboy thing. You saw it. With the surfers. Remember? Isn’t that great?”

  “Well, don’t go cuckoo,” Eva said, immediately realizing that was the wrong thing to say. “I mean, it’s great! Honey, be careful. Remember what happened all the other times. Let’s hope for the best and wait and see. Let’s be sure this is a good person.” Eva got up and touched her lover’s bare back. She adored her.

  “No, this is finally going to happen. Sixty-one rejections. Can you believe it? I survived sixty-one rejections.”

  “And the almosts are even worse.”

  “But that’s not the point. Eva! The point is that I was right not to give up. What if I had quit at sixty? Right? Then I never would have found Ilene. Ilene Leopold. Ilene Leopold. Finally, someone is going to help me who knows how things work.”

  Eva had a weird feeling of jealousy. This was her cancer moment, but hey, it was just a minuscule mass. It was good to focus on something more real and more promising.